


The Same Horizon

by BardofHeartDive



Series: A Good Ride [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fic Exchange, Gift Exchange, Headcanon, Mass Effect 2 spoilers, One Shot, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4254099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariella's reaction to Horizon told primarily from the perspectives of (or in relation to) the teammates and major non-teammate allies present on the Normandy at the time, another exchange with bondlikejames96. The companion piece is <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4235673">A Friend in Need</a> by the same author.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Same Horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bondlikejames96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bondlikejames96/gifts).



> Thanks again to bondlikejames96 for the prompt of this piece and her half of the exchange!
> 
> I had some difficulty in starting this story and it was the quote below that inspired use of a (mostly) not-Shepard perspective. I took the title from it as well. My biggest concern in the writing itself was getting the different characters' voices right because nothing breaks reading flow as much as character that doesn't sound like his/herself. I think I did better on certain characters than others. Any suggestions or constructive criticism in that (or any) regard would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> “We all live under the same sky but we don’t all have the same horizon.” - Konrad Adenauer

Joker seriously considered asking for a third check of the identification but managed to choke down the request. After all, he didn’t really doubt EDI’s findings. He just didn’t like them. They made him remember things.

Things like losing track of Shepard in the debris of the Normandy SR-1. The look on Kaidan’s face when his escape pod arrived with only him in it. Miranda showing him Shepard’s new body suspended in a tube of some kind of medical fluid.

For the most part they were easy to forget. Shepard was alive. He was sitting in the pilot’s seat of the Normandy. Garrus was running calibrations and Chakwas was nagging him about his medicine. They were saving the galaxy from certain destruction. If he squinted everything looked the same. He could forget that Shepard was alive _again_. That he was sitting in the pilot’s seat of the Normandy _SR-2_. Garrus was calibrating a gun not a Mako - they didn’t even have a Mako now - and since Cerberus’s experimental skeletal fortification treatment, his medication was an injection monthly, not a handful of pills daily.

Guilt wrapped itself around his throat, squeezing until he couldn’t breathe. While he sat up here in orbit, surrounded by all the things that had been returned to him in the last two years, on Horizon two other people were realizing exactly what they had lost.

“Joker - send the shuttle to pick us up. I’ve had enough of this colony.”

Shepard’s voice through the comm made him flinch. He needed to pull himself together by the time they got back. The last thing she needed now was to have to deal with him again.

He knew he should have had a pithy comment but all he could manage was “Aye-aye.”

* * *

“I swear, I’ll never get used to all this cushy medical treatment,” Zaeed griped as Chakwas applied anesthetic to the laceration on the back of his scalp. Only the mercenary could make the use of comfort measures sound like an inconvenience. “Last time I needed stitches I did them myself with soldering wire. You ever tried to sew up the back of your own knee?”

Chakwas raised an eyebrow but, standing behind him, the effect was lost.

“A goddamn mess, that was,” he continued. “Should’ve known it though. Let the whole thing get too personal. Like what happened just now planet-side. Shepard’s got a good head on her shoulders but she sure as hell wasn’t listening to it when she asked that Kaidan fellow to join up. Saves us all a world of trouble that he said no.”

“Kaidan Alenko?” She stopped in the middle of closing the wound with medical glue to ask. “Kaidan was on Horizon?”

Zaeed nodded. “My money’s on a setup. Nothing gets you off your game like running into someone you have that much history with.”

“She told you about their history?”

“Like she needed to,” he laughed. “You know how many ex-lovers I’ve been hired to kill in my time? Plenty enough to know if he was a little less scrupulous and a good deal richer, I’d be working for him now.”

“Alenko, he . . . ” Chakwas trailed off, uncertain how to describe the relationship her patients, her friends, used to have. “He cared very much about the commander.”

“‘Course he did,” Zaeed agreed. “Probably even loved her. See, it’s only the ones who are still in love that call in the hits.”

Chakwas eyebrow was up again but this time he could see it.

“What?” he asked. She could almost believe he was offended. “You think a man like me knows nothing about love? I ever tell you about my Jessie?”

* * *

Shepard had always taken care of her own gear so Jacob was surprised when Garrus brought it into the armory with his own. Surprised and disappointed. Though she sometimes did the post-mission maintenance in her cabin, she usually came down for it. He enjoyed having her there, more than he cared to admit. She had shut him down so smoothly he wasn’t sure if she was completely oblivious or exceptionally skilled. Either way, her disinterest didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate her company.

“Shepard okay?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too interested.

“No,” Garrus answered. He heaved the entire load onto one of the tables with a humming sigh. “No, she’s not.”

The answer heightened his curiosity. If she had been injured, Garrus would have been in the medbay with her or, failing that, waiting outside the door. In a way, Jacob envied his relationship with the commander. Despite two years apart, they had fallen in next to each other as easily as if no time had passed at all. Dozens of times Jacob had seen her turn for no apparent reason just in time to throw a charging husk or abomination off of his position. For his part, Garrus never seemed concerned about the approaching enemy, as if he knew Shepard had it under control and he could focus his attention elsewhere. No, he wouldn’t have been here if she was hurt. But if she wasn’t hurt, than why wasn’t she okay?

“Anything serious?”

“Let’s just say we ran into an old friend on Horizon.” Ignoring his own equipment, Garrus began disassembling her armor, checking each of the plates and cleaning them once they passed inspection. “It didn’t go well.”

“Here, let me help you with some of that,” Jacob said. He hoped that if he included himself in the task Garrus would eventually open up. He walked around the table Garrus was using so they were directly across from each other. “I’d be a sorry excuse for an Armory Officer if I just stood here - ”

Garrus’s talons shot possessively between his hand and Shepard’s pistol. His blue eyes burned with the intensity they held when he was sighting through a scope, though there was no hostility behind them.

“I got it,” Garrus said.

* * *

Miranda had pinged Shepard seventeen times in the two hours since they returned to the Normandy and each time Shepard had ignored the call. She had no intention of answering and had even considered disconnecting the comm system. Given her technical ability the disconnection would involve a warp field and a new thermal clip for her spare pistol.

Then EDI got involved.

“Commander, Operative Lawson requests you report to the Communications Room. The Illusive Man is on the QEC, waiting for your report on the mission on Horizon.”

“He can wait until hell freezes over for all I care.”

“She anticipated that response,” the AI’s voice purred. “I am to remind you that her access code will override the lock on your cabin.”

* * *

For as long as she could remember Jack slept at odd hours. It had started at Pragia when Cerberus had used periods sleep deprivation and sedatives for torture. After her escape she had no reason to establish a more normal sleep cycle. So when the noise woke her up the first night after Horizon she assumed incorrectly that she was just sleeping through the day again.

She shrugged it off, readjusted herself on the cot and tried to go back to sleep. She was just starting to drift again, when a brief scream sounded. It wasn’t a cry of fear or pain. It was rage. Through years of experience, she had become an expert at distinguishing between them. And that much rage that close to her bed needed to be looked into.

The sound was coming from the hangar, she determined, which made the investigation simple. During her first exploration of the area, she had found a way through emergency routes and engineering access that led her to an air vent above the bay. She followed that route now only to stop dead a few yards shy of her destination.

Lots of people didn’t think biotics had a smell. Most people who could smell them liked it. They said it was “clean,” like the smell of ozone after a heavy thunderstorm. Those people had never been drowned in it, though, completely submerged in a scent so thick it become a living thing around you. Pragia had been like that before and the shuttle bay was like that now.

Jack pressed herself against the walls of the vent, fighting the nausea, hyperventilation, and panic attack that threatened. She beat them back, the way she did anything that stood in her way. When she was certain she could control herself, she crept forward again until she was close enough to see through the grate.

Shepard was in the bay, drenched in sweat, breathing hard, and surrounded by an aura of dark energy so intense she looked more asari than human. She had cleared large area and was running through a set of practiced movements, hand-to-hand drills, Jack thought. It was clear they had not been designed to include biotics but Shepard had added them. Strikes and kicks paired with throws, warps, and shockwaves. Deflections leading into lifts, slams, and singularities. Barriers, stasis fields, and pulls accompanied withdrawing movements.

It was the first time that Jack had ever had an inkling of what the other kids had felt when they saw her at Pragia.

* * *

Kasumi waited, cloaked, by the door to the Normandy’s elevator. She had been there nearly fifteen minutes, since she realized it was Shepard in the mess, but she could be patient when the payoff was worth it. And this was definitely worth it.

The game had started when she realized that Shepard had an uncanny knack for knowing she was there, even when she was invisible to the outside world. On a whim, she had tried to follow Shepard into her cabin unnoticed. Everything had gone perfectly but when the commander exited the elevator she announced to a seemingly empty room, “You know Kasumi, if you wanted to see the cabin you could’ve just asked.” From the playful gleam in her eye, the commander knew exactly the challenge her words would start.

Shepard came around to the front of the elevator with a sandwich on a plate and hit the call button. The doors opened and Kasumi slipped in behind her unnoticed. Shepard was distracted, had been since returning from Horizon. Even before they reached the loft Kasumi was preparing to relish her victory. Today would be the day

Getting off the elevator and into the cabin went just as smoothly. Shepard sat down at the desk but she didn’t touch the sandwich. Instead she took a legal pad out of a drawer. She flipped to a blank page and started writing.

Kasumi had planned to announce her victory while lounging on the couch but with Shepard in the office, she changed her mind to sitting on the desk. Without making a sound she arranged herself for best effect. Before she uncloaked, however, her eyes fell on the paper, unconsciously reading the commander’s elegant script.

_. . . I did everything wrong. I should have followed you. I should have made you stay. I should have told you all the things I’ve been saying in these damn letters. . . ._

Kasumi stopped and slid off the desk. Suddenly, winning didn’t seem like much fun. She’d just find a quiet place to wait until she could slip out again.

* * *

“Immunoglobulins present in low concentration. Minor edema at injection site, less than previous assessments. White blood cell count elevated to 11.4. Temperature normal at 98.8.”

Usually Shepard loved listening to Mordin’s monologued stream of consciousness but this time she barely registered it. She complied with his instructions as he drew her blood and examined her shoulder but couldn’t bring herself to be amused. Like so many other things recently, it just didn’t seem to matter.

“Reaction similar to standard vaccination at three days.” The salarian inhaled deeply, his eyes closing to crescent-shaped slits. “Initial results promising. Follow-up to continue at two weeks. Will contact you.”

Without so much as a nod, she stood to leave.

“Shepard, one more thing. Medical concern. Aware that human emotional responses may affect physical health. Many observed behavior changes since Horizon. Know you met with Kelly yesterday, have second session scheduled for next week.” He paused, uncharacteristically hesitant about whatever he was about to say. “Suspect you would prefer different professional. Wanted to inform you all Cerberus bugs have been removed from lab. Also medbay. For sake of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

This time she nodded once.

Shepard made a beeline to the elevator, ignoring Kelly’s statement that there were new messages at her private terminal. The doors opened and closed while she stared at the button display. After a long debate with herself, she decided on Deck 3.

* * *

“I’d like to begin where we left off at our last session,” Kelly said. “We were discussing what happened on Horizon.”

“There really isn’t much more to tell,” Shepard said with a shrug. “The Collectors pulled out. They managed to take about half the colony with them. I wish we could’ve gotten to them but . . . there wasn’t anything else we could do.”

“What about Kaidan Alenko?” Kelly asked, pushing toward the real issue. “You never answered my question about your feelings for him.”

“I didn’t you realize you were asking as a counselor.”

“I wasn’t at the time,” Kelly admitted. “But do I think it’s relevant here. Given your history, it seems odd that you haven’t mentioned him during our sessions.”

“Not at all. I’d rather eat a bullet than tell you about him.” An edge of accusation slipped into her voice as she explained. “I think you report to the Illusive Man.”

“I understand your mistrust, Shepard, but - ”

“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you understand what it’s like to sit in a medbay while your team gets treated for exposure to rachni venom. Or to have to kill an entire colony of husks that used to be innocent, human civilians.”

Shepard winced, a momentary tightening of the muscles around her eyes and mouth, and Kelly reached out to touch her arm supportively. The commander pulled away as soon as the yeoman’s fingers brushed her skin.

“Do you know what he told me in the debriefing? He suspected the Collectors were targeting people who were close to me so he sent an anonymous tip to the Alliance about Horizon getting hit next. He used Kaidan to lure them there, he admitted it.” Her voice dropped until it was barely a whisper. “So, no, I will not tell you anything about him.”

* * *

“Shepard, this ‘Alenko’ everyone keeps talking about. Was he your enemy?”

Grunt’s question caught Shepard off guard. She hadn’t expected him to have any interest in Kaidan or their past. Strangely, though, of the ones who asked, he was the also the one she was most willing to answer. Or maybe it wasn’t strange, since he was only up against the various fronts of the Illusive Man.

“No,” she answered. “He was part of my team. Back when I took down Saren.”

“So, on Horizon, he betrayed you?”

“It would be more accurate to say that I betrayed him.”

“But you didn’t kill him.”

“No.”

Grunt scratched the plates on his forehead.

“You’ve been looking for a reason to care, right?” Shepard said, resting against the table by the entrance. “He gives me a reason.”

“So . . . you _want_ to kill him?”

Shepard laughed. “Sometimes, Grunt, someone’s death gives you a reason to care. But sometimes it’s their life.”


End file.
